She appeared on the horizon as if born from the light that blossomed in the eastern sky. Whence she came exactly, we could not see, but she now was striding towards the Dreamers animated with a fierce passion. Its cause, we could not determine, but it shone on her face like the moon in a starless night. Worries weighed on her brow, conflict burned in her eyes, yet she walked with confidence. We had seen such intensity a few times before, for she was not the first of her kind to come here. Most of the time, fortunately, they vanished before leaving their mark in our world. Those who remained, however, had indubitably etched their names in memory.
They were certainly a strange species. With no fur or feathers, the intruder appeared naked to our eyes, but for this second skin of fabric she had clad herself in. Was it not strange that it so resembled that which the elves liked to weave? Because indeed, her kind did look fairly like them, except for the beauty. Be it their silhouette, diminished, shrunken, or their face and ears, improperly planed and chiselled, they lacked the refinement of the elder fae. They showed no signs of the elves’ physical skills, nor did they display the strength or agility of an ape, despite looking disturbingly like one. The intruder’s stride was heavy, almost unconcerned, pestering the land without a care. Under her bare feet, the fiery light of dawn turned every dried leaf into gold and copper jewels, which she kicked aside absent-mindedly, stomping over sunlight itself without a second thought. The leaves rustled, crackled, and snapped. The flamboyant ground became a scattered mess of faded slivers of gold. No, there was nothing of the elves in her. There was pride, and there was certainty, the kind of which bordered with mild insanity. She was not an ape, either, naked or otherwise; but she was a beast indeed, the Beast Who Speaks and calls itself Human.
When at last she came close to the Dreamers, she slowed and stopped and looked at them. They stood tall and twisted, ill but undying, their tortured limbs thrown out to the sky in vain defiance. Relics of a bygone age, these elves had stood vigil at the entrance of the Garden for a long, long time. The human girl was but a few dozen of years old, she could never have known about them. Beasts have a short life, and a shorter memory. And yet… She gazed not in awe and wonder at their bone-white trunk and leafless boughs. She stared in fear, the kind of fear that is rooted in knowledge. They had been imprisoned in horse chestnuts, for these trees feed on dreams, and dreams these kings had. Dreams of revenge, dreams of conquest, dreams that should not be given shape, less so in the form of a powerful elven sorcerer.
Did she know about the night to come, then? Most certainly. She knew, as most did, that the elves would be freed, then, in a not so distant future. Did she fear them, or the night more? They had waged war against her people, after all. But it was so long ago, why should she care?
What she really knew and felt, we could only guess. We simply witnessed a deep sadness settle on her face—weariness, remorse, bitterness. Eventually, she took a deep breath and broke free of their charm. Anguish lined her face again and she focused on the edge of the woods behind the Dreamers. Their shadows spread long and menacing, and it seemed they were trying to reach for the Garden with their crooked fingers of wood, to reach for it and execute their vengeance.
The girl was in motion even before her legs moved, her decisiveness preceding her. She had come here for a reason, and it seemed they were not the sole cause. Her coming here was not random, and it showed in her steps: it was not the pace of a beast who had gone astray. The human girl was on a trail, which had guided her all the way here, to the Garden of the Dame.
There, sunlight was woven into the canopy, where it flowed between the trunks like a hundred rivers, flooding every nook, every cranny, nourishing and nurturing the trees and plants from sunrise to sunset. These woods had been the unexpected abode of Adelun for the past centuries, she who was the aden of the sun, guardian of the light of day, of those who sang with the morning and slept when the evening came. She was the Mother of dryads and the Queen of fairies.
Or so it had been before.
Traces of the conflict between Adelun and her sister showed everywhere. The girl had but to look around to see what was happening. She had but to look at the scars on the side of the path, where rivers used to flow, at the scorched holes in the ground where lay rotting stumps, at the wilted and discoloured ferns, the wild prickly shrubs, the amanita and funeral bells. There was nothing but loneliness in these woods, aching and vivid memories buried beneath the withering vegetation. Everything lively had gone but for a resilient seedling of ivy there, or holly shrubs here. Shrivelled trees were shivering under the cold, their trunks cracked, their branches bare. They would not see another spring. There would not be one. Gone were the colours, the dazzling shades of green in the afternoon sun, the agitation, the life. The light was excessively bright so as to spurn darkness, yet the spreading disease still marred the woods. They were something sombre, not so much shadows as splinters of night infecting the Garden, stuck in its soil and spreading, undeterred by the will of Adelun.
And yet, some still called these woods their home. Since the intruder was not especially quiet, and clearly wished not to be, beasts were eventually alerted and came to look at her. A fox’s tail showed behind a tree, a curious sparrow chirped from a naked branch, badgers and hare took a peek from under the withering ferns. Fallow deer were not as cautious, but kept their distance, while sleepy owls watched from their nest with a disapproving air. Just as curious, if only more daring, bluebell fairies, tiny as dragonflies, scintillated in the cold rays of sunlight as they flew dangerously close to the human’s face. Forest gnomes emerged from hollow logs or underneath piles of dried leaves, and stared at the human girl with concern from under their mushroom-like heads. They were not the only ones, of course. Observing from a distance for a while, dryads eventually came up to the intruder so that they could guide her to the hall of their Mother.
If they looked strange in her eyes—beasts whose fur was of grass, whose feathers were ferns, whose limbs and antlers were of wood—the human girl did not let it show. She waited in silence, and for a moment they simply stared at each other. They could have harmed her all too easily, had they wished. Some looked especially wild and dangerous to the girl, for they were tainted with the mark of the Night, and only the presence of Adelun kept them sane yet. Their eyes were red, their fangs longer than need be, they breathed with short rasping sounds and had anger in their heart. But there was also fear of what they were becoming. Their Mother had asked to see the stranger, however, and they could not say no to this demand. Slowly, they turned back the way they had come, and the girl followed.
It was a quiet procession that entered the glade of oaks where the aden was waiting. Dryads of old age, looking older still because of their troubles, a human girl looking increasingly upset, and the rising sun, paler than a winter’s breath. It fell in the hall like fog in the morning, its rays hanging like ghostly rags on the branches, a dull shimmer on the face of all who were present. It soothed the sullen mood of the dryads, but failed to warm up their heart. Most were crowded around an ancient oak that had long been dead, while others paced, flew or slithered nervously around the glade. A few beasts had gathered near the edge of the woods, but remained out of the sun, for they endured not its light any more. They favoured already a darkness which was not yet here, but for which they longed in spite of their once kind heart.
And indeed the sun shone bright in the hall of oaks, for the one in the sky was not the only one. There, in the great hollow oak in the middle of the glade, there was another light that eclipsed all. Another sun that chased away the smallest trace of shadows, any corner of darkness, of night, for fear it would consume her. There was the blazing glow of life. There was Adelun.
No one could tell if the Dame were clad in sunlight, or if the sun drank from her glowing shape. To us, she was both the sun and its shadow; she was its fire and its pain, showing its beauty as well as its weakness. For her light wavered, uncertain; it blinked unnoticeably for lesser eyes than ours, and it had diminished much over the years, while her sister Night grew stronger. But to the dryads she looked nothing like it, and neither did she in the eyes of the girl. The aden took on many shapes which we could only imagine. To a human, maybe Adelun appeared more like them, with two arms and two legs, a face to see and to be seen, to hear and to speak. Maybe she appeared more like an elf to seem welcoming, or like a grizzly bear with intimidating fangs, or maybe she was a faun, casually seated in the hollow trunk playing the flute, to appear confident. Or maybe even she was the oak itself, its lifeless boughs a warning, its impressive trunk a show of strength, its slithering roots, buried deeper than any other tree, a reminder of its old age and wisdom.
We could not know what the Dame looked like to the girl, but we could hear what she told her. Adelun spoke in the tongue of the fae, and asked that the girl came forward. A dryad made a gesture to the human, so that she took a few steps, and then was motioned to stop. The hall went quiet; even the girl held her breath, staring intently at the aden before her.
The Dame rose from her seat like the dawn breaks on a winter morning. Slow, pale and cold. As she moved, her light rippled throughout the glade and wrapped around the human girl so as to better know her, to understand what sort of beast she was, and what intention she had. No one could see this but us, it was only subtle ripples that no fae, and less so a beast could see.
And yet. A movement of the shoulder, a stroke of one hand on her arm and face as if dusting herself, scratching an itch. The human girl had sensed something. She understood it not, but she had sensed it, and it displeased her. She certainly was a curiosity.
In her path, Adelun gave life to the forest, or tried to, unconsciously and inevitably. Blades of grass grew from the parched earth, myosotis bloomed in a second, young oaks even sprouted from crushed acorns on the ground and began to rise and get bigger and thicker and… and turned to dust and back to earth. A gust of wind blew their ashes of dirt away.
The aden was now standing in front of the girl, a thousand fires burning gently before the strange animal, enfolding her in the pearly light of a clouded sun. The little one faltered not, however. There was no emotion on the human’s face but defiance. Her fists were closed, her body leaned slightly forward, expecting a confrontation. Adelun seemed not to notice it, or decided not to heed it. She began to speak, welcoming the girl in her Garden, and asking her a simple question. It sounded like a soft breeze in a distant forest, a summer song, yet it was thin, stretched, almost struggling. These past years, keeping her light out of reach of her sister had weakened her beyond belief. Yet she remained the aden of the day, of its light and life, so that she spoke warm and caring words. But because they were so close, the frail human eventually succumbed to the aura of Adelun. The girl slowly got carried away into the realm of sleep.
We thought that it was over before it even began. That the girl was too weak to meet Adelun, let alone converse with her. That she had no business, in truth, being here. It was our land, after all: Evelda, the land of the fae and the beasts, the land of the aden and their children. Our world to care for. The Dame was right: why had the human ventured here at all?
What occurred behind the closed eyelids of the human girl, we never learned. What sight she saw, or remembered in this fevered dream, we never guessed. Against all odds, however, she woke up. We were amazed to see the girl break free from the potent aura of the Dame, who had involuntarily bewitched her host.
But more surprising even, is that the girl knew our language perfectly, and with our words answered the Dame: “I’ve come to bargain. Your sun for my world.”13Please respect copyright.PENANAgeAE237qEh